Archived

Midterm Review - reviewed

My goal is to create a holistic landscape, urban, and architectural strategy that channels and cleans water, re-vegetates the site, brings needed social services, and creates economic opportunities.

All this while always aware that top-down solutions seldom work in this context. The most important lesson from the frame and infill study is that all the designers included, from Cedric Price to James Corner to Teddy Cruz, were strategic on WHAT to design. That is to say that designing for conditions that change over time does not mean that design gets thrown out the window. Strategically giving over control over some parts of the design gives freedom to focus on the careful design of other.
...Before I get into it, though, it is important to note how I will be using the Frame and Infill concept. Among my critiques of a lot of the designers that have used it is that the frame, although allowing for change within it, is often rigid and static. It is hard for it to recognize new conditions or change as social/environmental conditions change. It is thus that I am using the Frame along side the idea of Pattern. A basic set of rules that can be applied taking into account changing social and environmental conditions on the ground.